


A Streak of Bad Luck

by Rod



Series: Miami Knights [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, CSI: Miami, Jake 2.0, Roswell (TV)
Genre: Dan Cooper is Michael Guerin, Death Traps, Gremlins, M/M, Stupid Cultists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13375929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: Tyler Jensen put cultists in jail.  That has consequences.  It's just a shame that Dan Cooper is the one to have to put up with them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: as usual, the various characters belong to their various creators. Dan/Michael is in the awkward position of belonging to two different sets of creators; blame Brenden Fehr for attracting my attention :-)

The little things were beginning to get to Dan.

A/V Technician for the Miami-Dade crime lab had been a dream job to start with. Aside from the unfortunate resemblance between CSI Eric Delko and Jesse Ramirez which had Dan convinced he was going to be discovered for the whole first week, it had all been suspiciously normal. Running the A/V suite wasn't something he could cheat at, which made his part in catching crooks all the sweeter. And it was sweet, that was the surprising thing; Dan — Michael — had been the one constantly in trouble with the police as a kid, resentful that they had never done anything about his foster father Hank even though he had worked hard to hide all the bad stuff. Putting that right however distantly had been huge. Most of the video he had to analyse was for big stuff, murders and armed robberies and so on, but every now and then he would see something that screamed 'abused kid' at him and he could take it to the CSIs and expect something to happen.

The only problem he had in those early days was that he had no one to share it all with. Maria was reinventing herself in New York, and Dan didn't dare call her too often. Anyone else might have socialised with his co-workers, but Dan had never been the sociable sort. All of the people he had been even vaguely friendly with as a teenager he'd known through Max and Isabel. Maria teased that he didn't know how to make friends, which was a lot truer than he wanted to admit.

It didn't help that the guy he replaced had been quietly popular. He had even had a tragic story, quitting after his boyfriend, a much-loved CSI, had been shot in the line of duty. Truth to tell, Dan was getting a little tired of hearing stories about trusty Tyler Jensen and the Blessed Tim Speedle. The way people talked, he was honestly surprised no one was petitioning the pope to canonise the guy.

So yeah, maybe Dan was a little pricklier with his colleagues than was strictly necessary, but he did good work. The CSIs seemed to think so anyway, apart from Delko who had never warmed to him after their disastrous first meeting, and who cared if he didn't get invited out to drinks after work? Given his metabolism's reaction to alcohol, that was probably a good thing anyway.

Lately, though, people seemed to have taken to hazing him in a variety of annoying ways. Dan had lost count of the number of coffee cups he had knocked to the floor, and of course he couldn't risk mending them at work. Paperwork was forever going astray, the cleaners unplugged his PC every now and then, and someone had even managed to put a big dent in his locker. It was worse than he'd ever put up with in high school, though of course most people had been scared of how he would react back then.

This had never been his sort of thing, dealing with people without pissing them off, and he didn't know what to do. Was he supposed to report it, or would that just rile everyone? Lt Caine, the shift supervisor, wasn't exactly the cuddly and approachable type, and might well not be any help. On the other hand, trying to tough it out was no fun, and the more frustrated Dan got the more likely it was he'd slip with his powers and have to run again.

So yeah, maybe his life wasn't completely ideal. Still, it was a hell of a lot better than he had any right to expect, all things considered. That was why he didn't think anything of it when Horatio Caine walked into his office.

"Hey," Dan said affably. He gestured at the security video now paused on his monitor. "I haven't got anything on the Mansfield case yet. You want me to page you when something comes up?"

"I'm afraid that will have to wait, Mr Cooper." Lt Caine was giving nothing away, but Dan got a sinking feeling. He schooled his face, trying not to look like he was expecting the worst. "I need to ask you some questions about Tim Speedle."

Dan's surprise was entirely unfeigned. "Uh, ask away," he said. "I don't know how much help I can be though. I never met the guy."

"Were you aware that your locker is next to the one that was allocated to Speed?"

"No," Dan said bemusedly "I guess someone mentioned I inherited it from the previous A/V tech, but that's it." He searched his memory for a moment. "Oh, I've seen Alvarez from Accounts use the locker left of mine. I guess that must mean Speedle's was the one on the right." Since Alvarez had been with the crime lab for years, and people didn't usually change lockers.

Lt Caine nodded sagely. "So you weren't aware that it hadn't been cleared out since his death?"

"Uh, no?" If he'd thought about it at all, he would have assumed it had been cleared out straight away. On the other hand, keeping a shrine to the Blessed Tim was just what he ought to have expected around here. What was it with these people?

"Then can you explain how this came to be in your locker?" Lt Caine tossed an evidence bag in front of Dan that contained a credit card. A card labelled "T SPEEDLE". What the hell?

"Have you seen my locker?" Dan said once he got over his surprise. "Anyone could have slipped anything into it, it's so beat up."

"Very true, Mr Cooper." Lt Caine almost smiled. Almost. "So you haven't seen this card before?"

"No," Dan confirmed. "It appeared in my locker?"

"It did. After a number of purchases were made using it online, to be delivered to your home address."

"What?!"

"Exactly, Mr Cooper. What indeed."

It took Dan way too long to stop gaping and start thinking again. Lt Caine waited patiently, and it belatedly occurred to Dan that maybe the lieutenant didn't think he was that stupid. Once he thought that, it was obvious what he needed to do next.

Dan pushed his chair away from his desk, keeping his hands in full view the whole time. "You should check my browser history," he said. "It's probably been cleared, but maybe there are some logs somewhere..."

His computer made a horrible grinding noise and died suddenly. Smoke began pouring out of the case. Dan didn't even think, he just lunged forward, grabbed the cable and yanked the power out. The spark nearly blinded him, and he was abruptly very glad that his fingers had been nowhere near the socket. His powers would have saved him, but there was no way someone like Lt Caine would not have noticed.

"Mr Cooper. Dan." Lt Caine raised his voice when Dan didn't react immediately.

"I'm OK," he said, "surprised, not shocked." He took a calming breath. "Please tell me someone already pulled the server logs."

"I'm more concerned with your health," Lt Caine said smoothly. "Get yourself checked out."

"I said I'm fine," Dan insisted. No good could come from medics poking him. "I've never seen a computer do that before."

"Nor have I, Mr Cooper, nor have I." Lt Caine looked consideringly at the mess that used to be Dan's computer, then stepped into the corridor and flagged down a passing officer. "Eric will be here soon to take charge of the evidence," he told Dan once he was done. "In the mean time, is there anything else that you can think of that might be relevant?"

Dan thought for a moment and decided to come clean. About this, at least. "I've had little things going wrong for a while now," he admitted. "Lost paperwork, my computer being unplugged overnight when I'd left it running enhancements, that sort of thing. I'd assumed it was some kind of hazing, but this? It's kind of extreme."

"That it is," Lt Caine agreed. "For your information, this department does not tolerate any behaviour that puts an investigation at risk." He pushed a pad of paper over to Dan. "I want you to write down every incident you can remember," he said, "no matter how small. Anything that might help us figure out who is doing this and why."

Dan nodded and pulled out a pen. He paused; "Do we have internal security footage around the labs?" he asked.

"We do indeed, Mr Cooper," Lt Caine said, "however you cannot touch it." Because he was one of the people being investigated, Dan filled in for himself. Any evidence he went near would be considered tainted.

"I can't work on any cases right now, can I?" he said. "Not even with a new computer."

Lt Caine nodded. "I'm going to have to call in a favour."


	2. Chapter 2

Kyle Duarte studied the nutball sitting across the table from him. In some ways the man looked like he belonged in his prison orange jump suit. The tattoo of an eagle spread across his face definitely belonged on a gang-banger, as did the shaven head and the Breaking Bad moustache. But then Henry Danforth opened his mouth, and the cultured voice and educated vocabulary did not belong with that image at all.

"I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about, Agent Duarte," Danforth said. "I haven't done anything." He smiled a painfully smug smile, not that Kyle needed that clue to tell that the guy was lying. The problem was he had no idea what the guy might be lying about.

Danforth had been arrested on the usual nebulous National Security charges by Jake Foley, who was at least nominally Kyle's junior agent still. Normally that meant that Kyle got the full skinny on what had really gone on, since the true stories of Jake's nanite-fueled exploits carefully never made it into official paperwork. This case however had been classified so high Kyle got a nosebleed just thinking about it. All he knew for certain was that Lou had fielded a phone call from the President, and even she wasn't allowed to know what those nebulous National Security charges actually were.

That should have been that. Kyle had kept his ears open in case Jake let something slip, but with that level of security he honestly hadn't expected to hear anything more about Danforth or the half dozen others arrested at the same time.

Except that somehow an NSA watch order had been slapped on Danforth and his cronies _while they were still in prison._ If they did anything weird, whatever that meant, Agent Jake Foley was to be informed. And last night, Agent Jake Foley had been informed that Danforth had requested and received half a dozen candles. A month ago.

Kyle had known Jake since he had been a naive, bumbling techie suddenly thrust into front-line espionage. A couple of years had turned him into a capable field agent, but at heart he was still a nice, inoffensive guy, not the sort to get aggressive with anyone without very good cause. That was what made Jake tearing a strip off the Governor of Miami Federal Prison so shocking. Kyle would have given the guy a hard time on general principles, but he couldn't get himself worked up about something so meaningless. Jake had flipped. Then he had made secure calls to London and Cleveland, and point blank refused to tell Lou what was going on. She had retaliated by sending Kyle along to sit in on the interview, which involved getting to the airport at ridiculous o'clock to catch the first flight Jake could get down to Miami. Only sitting in on the interview had turned into taking the interview, since Jake got a phone call just before they were due to start.

Not having a clue was going on was not a good place to start questioning from. Still, Kyle had years of training at bluffing answers out of recalcitrant bad guys. "Candles, Mr Danforth," he said with exaggerated patience. "Did you think we wouldn't notice?"

"They add a certain something to the ambience, don't you think?" Danforth smirked. Kyle briefly considered violence.

"Rather more than that, I'd say," he tried instead. Danforth's file said he had an academic background and an ego to match. Kyle just had to give him enough opportunities to demonstrate his genius. He was sure to bite eventually.

"I really don't know what you could possibly mean," Danforth said airily. Kyle was too professional to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose, much though he wanted to. Instead he smiled and waited, giving Danforth some space to fill.

Barely ten seconds later, well before Danforth could crack and claim credit for anything, Jake barged into the interview room. Danforth blanched. Jake stalked over, planted his hands on the table and loomed over the man, which would have worked better if he wasn't so skinny. It seemed to work well enough on Danforth, Kyle noted bemusedly.

"You are an idiot," Jake ground out.

"You—" Danforth didn't know what to say. "You're alive."

Jake didn't dignify that with an answer. "What the hell did you think you were doing? What did you expect to achieve?"

Danforth's eyes narrowed. "Revenge," he spat. "It's all your fault, Watcher. We would have had power you can't imagine, in inner circle of the Eagle King, if—"

"Until it got bored of you, which took about five seconds in your boss's case," Jake interrupted. "Plus, I'm not a Watcher."

"Not..." Whatever the hell that meant, it seemed to have floored Danforth. "But the Slayer is always guided by a Watcher."

"The Slayer," Jake said leadenly.

"The one girl in all the world—"

" _The_ Slayer." Somehow Jake managed to laden so much sarcasm on the first word that Kyle was surprised the paint didn't peel off the walls. "How are you still alive? There's a Watcher up in Cleveland who's missing an eye now, and a Slayer who will regain the use of her leg in a few weeks. There's also a bunch of other Slayers who would be on their way to pay a visit to you except the Senior Slayer for North America pulled rank on them. _The_ Slayer," he snorted in disgust and pushed away from the table.

Kyle might not know what was going on, but he knew how to run an interrogation. "You can see how it might be in your best interest to tell us everything," he said patiently.

"But..." Danforth looked helplessly at him. "There is only one Slayer at a time, the books all agreed on that." Jake snorted again, not even looking at the man. Kyle smiled encouragingly. "You two should have been the easy ones," Danforth continued. "They are drawn to the Slayer anyway."

Jake swore and leaned on the table again. "Who else did you target?" he demanded.

Danforth shut his mouth abruptly and smirked. He had about two seconds to revel in knowing something Jake didn't before Jake picked him up and pinned him to the wall. "Who else?" he snarled. "Tell me right now or I swear I won't leave enough of you for the Slayers to talk to."

"The technician," Danforth blurted out. "The police told me he was the crime lab's video technician."

Jake looked grim. "Who else?" he demanded.

"No one, I swear. No one else was there."

"Ha!" Jake let go of Danforth and stepped away in disgust. He looked like he was too angry to speak, which was so unusual that Kyle felt genuinely worried. He kept that firmly off his face though.

"Is there anything else we should know, Mr Danforth?" he asked politely. In his experience, people never admitted to everything in one go. They always tried to hold something back. Ask them while they were still off-balance and you often found out what.

"It wasn't supposed to kill him straight away," Danforth obligingly admitted. "We wanted him ruined first. He had to pay for what he did."

"What he did?" Jake said. "All he— No, you know what, I'm done with you. You are seriously too stupid to live. The next time you do something I'm just going to let the Watchers do what they hell they want with you." He turned and stormed out, leaving a pale Danforth looking at Kyle in mute appeal.

Kyle smiled. "If you know anything that might help me calm my partner down," he said, "now might be a good time to mention it."

Danforth just carried on looking at Kyle pathetically. "I'm sorry?" he offered eventually.

Kyle didn't believe it for a second and didn't bother to hide it. "I'll be sure to let him know," he said as he stood. "Have a nice day."

Outside the interview room, Jake was pacing agitatedly as he talked on the phone. "You're sure nothing unusual has been going on?" he was saying. Whatever the response was, it didn't reassure him. "Of course," he said, slapping his forehead, "because Danforth is a moron. He's managed to target the lab's _current_ A/V guy."

Jake started moving towards the prison gate, and Kyle followed along. "Yeah," Jake said into his phone. "You call him and tell him to get out of there. I'll keep the poor guy alive until Faith gets here."

Kyle waved his hand in front of Jake's face. 'Keep who alive?' he mouthed.

Jake held up a hand. "It'll be OK, Tim," he said soothingly. "Tyler isn't the target. He won't be in any danger." Kyle could see the unspoken 'I hope' on Jake's face, and decided a little worry might well be justified.

Eventually Jake ended the call as they stepped out into the Floridian sunlight. Kyle pulled out his sunglasses. "Care to tell me what's going on?" he asked. "Preferably before we get to the crime lab and we have to protect someone from poorly defined death threats."

Jake sighed. He had that slightly unfocused look Kyle had learned meant he was accessing Google Maps or something. "Danforth and his idiot friends tried to do something that would have turned Miami into a war zone. Four of us stopped them; me, an unbelievable hand-to-hand fighter with the code name 'Slayer', the guy who used to be Miami-Dade Crime Lab's A/V tech, and his boyfriend. Don't mention the boyfriend when we get to the lab, by the way. They all think he's dead."

"Deep cover?" Kyle asked as they reached the car. He deliberately claimed the driver's side; Jake wasn't that great a driver, and he had a tendency to manipulate the traffic signals when he was in a hurry.

"You have no idea," Jake said. "Anyway, what Danforth just tried was a smaller scale version of the same thing aimed at the four of us. Don't ask how, you don't want to know. Because he's actually about as smart as a jellyfish, Danforth got almost everything wrong. What it boils down to is that the guy who took over Tyler's job is facing death by booby trap."

"Booby trap?"

"Apparently that's the M.O. of these particular... assassins."

That was an interesting hesitation, Kyle thought. He wondered what Jake wasn't saying. "So we're looking for maintenance people and cleaners in the wrong places, that sort of thing?"

"We're looking for things about to take out our guy," Jake said grimly. "We aren't going to find the assassin. There's an expert coming for that."

"Jake, we're the NSA," Kyle reminded him. "We are the experts."

"Not for this," Jake said. "If you see anything weird looking, assume it's a threat and get out of there."

Kyle shook his head. "That isn't good enough," he said. "I need to know what I'm getting into or I'm not going to be able to make effective decisions."

"You won't believe it." Jake didn't even look at him when he said that. Kyle felt vaguely insulted; he thought he and Jake had long ago got past Jake's mistaken belief that older agents were all humourless and inflexible.

"I work with a guy who performs superhuman feats because he's home to a few million microscopic machines," he said. "Do you seriously think I wouldn't believe you?"

"On this? Yes. I didn't believe it until I saw it," Jake said, "and then I got lucky and didn't die. That impressed Summers more than all the fighting we did."

"Summers? Your mysterious Slayer?"

"The one the President was very put out to find we were investigating," Jake said pointedly. It was a good point, Kyle had to admit. He did not want to get on the presidential shit list.

"Do you know what she did to earn that?" he asked.

Jake shrugged. "Probably saved the world," he sighed. It didn't sound like a joke, and he didn't look like he was joking when Kyle risked a glance across. Some other covert agency then, Kyle reasoned, one that had been more successful at staying off the books than the NSA. That didn't explain why Jake was being so coy about what they were facing.

"She do that often?" he asked.

"I wouldn't be surprised." Jake shrugged again. "She was as strong and as fast as I am, but a lot more skilled."

"Huh." It took a moment for what Jake actually said to penetrate. "Wait, she's got nanites too?"

"No. I don't know what she's got, but it isn't nanites. She doesn't know what I've got, so I guess we're even on that."

"Okay," Kyle said slowly. The idea that other agencies could get resources like Jake by other means was a disturbing one. The NSA had defences against nanite-powered enemies, many of which Jake had helped to install, but how effective would those be against this Slayer? Unless Jake was mistaken or deliberately misleading him. Kyle stopped at a red light and glanced across at Jake, looking for tells.

Jake looked back at him soberly. "That's the least unbelievable part of this whole thing," he said. "Please Kyle, trust me when I say the rest is much weirder, and I don't have time to convince you."

Kyle chewed that over for a moment before deciding to leave it until they got to the crime lab. If this really was as strange as Jake suggested, he didn't want the distraction while he was driving.


	3. Chapter 3

"Wow, that is one fried computer."

Tyler Jensen smiled broadly as CSI Eric Delko turned from the blackened chassis in front of him and grinned. "Ty! How are you, man?"

"I'm doing good," Tyler replied. He thought to add, "The change of scenery was good for me." A disturbingly large number of people here knew he and Speed had been a couple before Speed died, but none of them knew that Speed was alive again and living with him.

"Good to hear it," Eric said sincerely. "The place hasn't been the same without you. Talking of which, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company? Not that it isn't good to see you, but it's been a while."

"Apparently you're down an A/V man. Though if that's his machine, I'm kinda curious as to just how down he is." Horatio hadn't said anything more than his new guy was under investigation and his computer was non-functional, which was why Tyler was carrying a laptop ready loaded with his favourite software.

"Oh, you're the favour H called in." Eric grinned again, then waved dismissively. "Cooper's fine, he was talking with Horatio when it happened. Though apparently there was a hell of a spark when they yanked the power."

"Uh-huh." Tyler set up his laptop as he talked, glad he had already gone through the rigmarole of getting his lab account reactivated. "So what happened in there?" he asked.

"Looks like one of the power supply capacitors split and caught fire," Eric said distractedly, poking about in the innards of the wrecked PC again.

Tyler considered this as he pulled the security feeds for last night that Horatio had asked him to look through. "Would that explain the spark?" he asked. Household voltages weren't high enough to produce much of a spark as far as he remembered.

"Yeah." Eric didn't sound convinced, though.

"But?" Tyler asked. He set another couple of programs running as he settled in to watch all the cameras that had sight of the A/V lab and its approaches. One would flag up any discontinuities in the recordings, the other would mark the start and end of any activity, which there shouldn't have been much of overnight.

"I don't know," Eric admitted. "It just seems like an awfully big coincidence that this should blow up just when we wanted to look at Cooper's browser logs."

"It's a lot harder to do than just deleting a couple of files," Tyler pointed out. "Which you can still read if you connect the disc drive up to another machine."

Eric shook his head. "The drive's trashed," he said. "I took it apart when it wouldn't spin up. It looks like the drive heads scratched half the surface off."

Tyler whistled. "I guess a power surge could cause something like that," he said dubiously. It sounded more like what happened when you dropped a laptop and got unlucky. "What were you looking for, anyway?"

"Online purchases," Eric said. He paused, looking cautiously at Tyler. "Uh, using Speed's credit card."

"Oh." Tyler paused himself for a moment. It didn't hurt the way Eric probably thought it did, but it was a surprise. "I guess nobody cancelled it," he said slowly. He'd never thought about that. There might be a whole load of other things from Tim's old life that still needed dealing with. He'd have to ask. "Do you think the new guy did it?"

"Horatio doesn't think so."

Meaning that Eric did think so, but knew better than to argue with his boss. Fair enough. "I guess we'll just have to find other ways to dig the information out," Tyler offered.

"This just feels all wrong," Eric muttered, his attention back on the dead computer. He reached for tin snips and a pair of pliers, and moments later he lifted the mangled remains of the big capacitor from the chassis. "I'm going to test this for weakening or accelerants," he said.

"Anything that could have delivered them on cue?" Tyler asked.

Eric's shoulders slumped. "No," he said, "and it's been under observation since it crashed."

"Maybe it got introduced from outside somehow?" One of Tyler's programs pinged. "Oh, that's interesting," he said, pausing the video and typing rapidly. "We've got a gap in the security footage at 03:12 for five minutes." He typed some more. "On all four cameras."

"Well if that isn't suspicious as all hell, I don't know what is," Eric said, carrying the burned-out capacitor to a clearer area of desk. Anything else he might have said was cut off when an unfamiliar young man came in.

"Hey, Eric," he said, "Lt Caine said to give this to you when I was done." He waved a pad of paper at Eric, then belatedly nodded at Tyler.

"Thanks, Cooper," Eric said, sounding a lot cooler than when he had greeted Tyler. Tyler spared Cooper a second glance. A young face with messy light brown hair stared back at him. Cooper held himself back, trying for aloof but honestly looking like a puppy too used to being kicked. Tyler's heart went out to him.

"Hi," he said, "I'm Tyler Jensen, your predecessor. Pull up a chair, I could use another pair of eyes."

"Ty," Eric said warningly.

"Eric," Tyler drawled back. "He can look without having a chance to tamper with the evidence, so we're good with protocol. Besides, you're here to chaperone us." He grinned at Eric, who rolled his eyes and muttered something about it being on Tyler's head if Horatio caught them here. Tyler ignored him and waved Cooper over.

Cooper sat, looking awkward. "I'm Dan," he said. "Dan Cooper."

"Good to meet you, Dan," Tyler said, cuing the video streams to five seconds before the discontinuity. "So we've got a gap in the security cameras on your lab last night."

"Wait, you mean my computer frying itself wasn't an accident?" Cooper asked. He was quick on the uptake, Tyler was pleased to note. The cameras showed nothing unusual so he set the video running at one twentieth speed.

"We can't prove it," he said, "but even Eric thinks it stinks like week-old tuna."

"That's not what I said," Eric objected mildly. He didn't look up from where he was now examining the capacitor under a high-power magnifier.

"I translated," Tyler told him. No way was he letting Eric's insinuation that Cooper might have been responsible into this conversation.

Cooper himself looked dubious. "I could believe a virus got loose on my computer somehow, but that didn't look like a software — What the hell?"

Tyler hit pause. "One camera is completely obscured," he said for Eric's benefit. "Just for one frame, then we hit the gap." The footage after the gap looked perfectly normal, so Tyler stepped back to scrutinise the anomaly. Eric came and stared over their shoulders.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to a lighter patch.

Tyler squinted. "Too blurred to be useful," he said. If all else failed he'd try enhancing it, but it did not look promising.

"Might just be an artefact anyway," Cooper said, pointing to the info bar. Then he snapped his fingers. "There's another camera up the corridor that should have sight of this one."

"I know the one you mean." Tyler quickly pulled the relevant feed and cued it up. "There!" he said, hitting pause as he noticed the ceiling tile move. It had been raised just a fraction, as if someone was peering out. The next frame showed a hairy black arm reaching through the gap, which explained what had blacked out the other camera. The frame after that showed the corridor clear, but five minutes later again.

"Is that a monkey or something?" Eric asked as Tyler stepped the video back and enlarged the arm. It certainly looked monkey-like, with black fur and a hand with an opposable thumb. For some reason Tyler didn't quite buy that, though.

"Whatever it is, it's fast," Cooper said, frowning at the screen. "Reaching that far in one frame time, that's... kind of ridiculously fast actually." He had a point, Tyler realised. He hadn't seen anything move that fast except Summers and Foley. He began to get a bad feeling about this.

"Can we get any more definition out of that?" Eric asked, pointing to the dark area where the tile was lifted. There were smudges there that might resolve to something useful, Tyler decided.

"I can try," he said. He marked out the region and set a contrast enhancer running, all the while trying to think of excuses to leave the room. He really needed to call some people who might know what this superfast thing was, somewhere that trained investigators wouldn't be listening in and coming to the wrong conclusions.

He was spared having to come up with an excuse when the door opened and Jake Foley walked in. Not who Tyler had been thinking of calling, but he would definitely do. With him was a Hispanic man in the sort of suit that practically screamed 'secret agent'. Tyler would have pegged him as NSA or some other three letter organisation even if he hadn't been with Jake.

"What are you doing still here?" Jake asked Tyler in surprise.

"Nice to see you again too," Tyler said mildly. "How have you been?" It probably wasn't polite to ask what they were in Miami for.

Eric moved to stand between Tyler and the agents. "You know these guys, Ty?" he asked. He pointed his best 'Do not mess with me' face at Jake.

Tyler waved him off. "Agent Foley got pushed on Horatio as technical support for a couple of days," he explained. "Good thing too as it turned out. I'm just filling in for a day or two while they're short-handed."

"I know, I meant..." Jake pinched his nose and sighed. "Your other half was supposed to call you," he said awkwardly.

Eric shot him an amused glance. Tyler barely noticed; if Jake had called Tim, something serious must be going on. He fumbled his phone out to check for missed calls. "Huh," he said, "I've got no signal."

"Probably not an accident," Jake said grimly.

Really serious, then. "Jake, what's happening?"

"You remember those cultists we took out?" Tyler nodded. Like he could possibly forget the day he got Tim back. "Well apparently they were pretty pissed off with you, me and Summers," Jake continued, pointedly not mentioning Tim.

Tyler began to get a really bad feeling about this. "What did they do?" he asked.

"Summoned some things to go after us," Jake said. "Only because they are total morons, they sent them after the wrong people. The ones that were supposed to be aimed at Summers and me have been dealt with. The last one is after the crime lab's current A/V tech."

"What?" Cooper yelped.

Jake refocused on him. "You're Dan Cooper?" he asked. Cooper nodded. "Good. We need to get you somewhere safe until this is dealt with. You too, Tyler. I will never hear the end of it if I let you get hurt."

Eric folded his arms obstinately. "They're safe here," he said firmly. Tyler thought of the hairy arm they had just seen on the surveillance video and went cold.

" _What_ is after us," he asked. He saw Jake's colleague lift an eyebrow at the question, and wondered if the guy knew they were dealing with the supernatural.

Jake grimaced. "As near as I can figure it, a gremlin."

Eric snorted. "Yeah, sure," he drawled.

"Guys," Cooper said quietly.

"Seriously?" Jake's colleague asked incredulously. "Short, green and do not feed after midnight?"

"Three foot tall, black and hairy, but yes," Jake said. "Unless you can think of a better name for something that loves booby traps and messes up machinery for fun?"

"You really believe that." OK, the guy didn't know about demons and stuff. Maybe it had been classified up the wazoo and no one had given Tyler the memo.

Jake sighed. "Kyle, can you just assume that everything I've said since we got here has been the absolute literal truth?"

"I can vouch for some of it," Tyler said helpfully.

Kyle, if that was his name, ignored him. "Yeah, but gremlins...?"

"Guys!"

Everyone turned to look at Cooper, who was staring at Tyler's laptop. The enhancer had finished its work, and on the screen was an inhuman face with way too many teeth.

Then the lights went out.


	4. Chapter 4

The late morning sunshine coming through glass walls meant that the crime lab wasn't particularly dark, but the loss of the overhead lights had a definite psychological impact. Kyle certainly felt tense. He still wasn't sure that the disturbing face on the laptop wasn't part of some elaborate prank, but he understood the tactics of killing power and communications. It gave a lone assassin an edge.

"May I?" Jake asked, moving towards the laptop.

The former lab tech, 'Tyler' Jake had called him, moved aside and made 'go ahead' gestures. "It's only got limited access," he said, "just what I needed for... OK, never mind." Kyle smirked. He loved the effect Jake's abilities had on computer people, had done ever since watching Dumont's face as Jake stopped his computer from wiping itself clean.

"How long has it been here?" Jake asked as he typed rapidly.

"At least since yesterday," Tyler said. "That still was us catching it coming out of the ceiling." Kyle started scanning the false ceiling, just in case.

"Probably longer than that," Cooper put in. "Accidents have been happening to my stuff for a while. It's had plenty of time to set up."

"You're taking this awfully calmly," Kyle observed.

"I'm really not," Cooper said. "Just, now is not the time to freak out." A good philosophy, but not something Kyle expected of support staff. Even Jake hadn't been that self-possessed to start with.

"If there's something dangerous in the building, we should get everyone clear," said the last guy, CSI Delko according to the badge on his lab coat.

"At least that's easy," Kyle said. He hit the fire alarm with his elbow and a reassuringly loud ringing started up. He could see people moving in the corridor outside, heading off in an orderly manner. Cooper made a move for the door, but Kyle put out a hand to stop him. "If we go now, we put a lot of innocent bystanders in the firing line," he said. Cooper nodded reluctantly.

"Oh no you don't," Jake said to the laptop.

"What's happening?" Kyle asked him.

"It's in the system, messing with the logs, the personnel files, that sort of thing. Planting more evidence to ruin Cooper's reputation, I guess. It's fast too."

"If it's really a gremlin, it's probably cheating," Tyler said. Kyle tried not to snort at the idea; if everyone else was going with a supernatural explanation, the best approach was not to rock the boat. Still, the whole idea was ridiculous.

"Yeah, well two can play at that game," Jake said. He stopped typing and stared hard at the laptop. Kyle started doing threat sweeps in earnest; when he concentrated this hard on hacking, Jake was a sitting duck.

"At least we know the backup power works," Tyler said, not taking his eyes off Jake. "How long will it last?"

"The server room UPS is only rated for a few minutes," Delko said, "enough to shut everything down cleanly. The backup diesel generator will last about six hours." He looked up at the still non-functional lights. "It should have cut in by now."

"I read somewhere that those things fail to start automatically a lot of the time," Cooper said. "Our gremlin wouldn't have had to do much to sabotage it." He looked round nervously, the classic amateur's attempt to scan the surroundings.

"What is he doing?" Delko ask suspiciously, moving towards Jake. Kyle went to stop him, but Tyler got there first.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here," Tyler said, "and say 'Not magic.'"

Delko looked at him incredulously. "That's going out on a limb?" he asked. Kyle privately agreed.

Tyler looked at the information flashing past on the laptop's screen. "He isn't even touching the keyboard any more, so yeah. But magic isn't supposed to play well with electronics."

"Seriously?" Kyle couldn't stop himself saying.

"And his partner doesn't believe in the supernatural."

"Hey!" Kyle objected.

"But you do?" Cooper asked before Kyle could tell these people just how insane they sounded.

Tyler nodded. "I've got convincing evidence," he said. His eyes unfocused and he smiled. " _Very_ convincing evidence."

"Okay," Delko said slowly. "You're telling me that magic is r—"

Jake jerked suddenly. At the same moment the fire alarm fell silent. "Wow," Jake said. "That was worse than putting down Dumont's virus collection."

Cooper frowned. "Shouldn't the alarms be on a separate circuit or something?" he asked.

"They should," Delko agreed.

"I think our gremlin got tired of me routing through emergency systems," Jake said a little smugly. "It just took out all the backup power."

Tyler grinned at him. "You really are the six million dollar version of Summers, aren't you?" he said.

"I couldn't possibly comment," Jake said, grinning back, "but six million dollars is way too small a budget."

Kyle did not sigh, facepalm or otherwise hint that Jake was virtually leaking classified information. Hopefully the others would think it was a joke. "Alright geeks," he said lightly, "we need to get out of here. The coast is clear now, we won't be putting anyone else in danger." He reached for the door handle. It didn't budge.

"The locks are supposed to fail safe," Delko protested.

"Gremlin," Tyler reminded him.

Delko looked like he would argue the point, but Cooper held up his hand for silence. "Can you guys hear something?" he asked.

Everyone stopped and listened. Kyle couldn't hear anything, but Jake evidently could. He lifted his head and sniffed cautiously. "Gas," he shouted. "Let me through."

Kyle stepped aside as Jake reached the door faster than an unaugmented human was capable of. Jake didn't even try being subtle with the lock, simply mashing it open with his strength. "You take point," he told Kyle, then started hustling the others out.

Kyle hadn't waited to be told, especially not when sparking noises started coming from the laptop. There wasn't time to check carefully for more booby traps, he just had to hope that the assassin was betting a locked door would hold them for long enough.

"Move! Move! Move!" Jake shouted. "Follow Kyle."

"Where are we going?" Cooper shouted breathlessly.

"Away from there," Kyle said. It wasn't like he knew the layout of the place, and anyway a random direction was less likely to be trapped.

Seconds later, within sight of actual hard cover, Jake yelled "Get down!" and the room blew. Kyle hit the floor with his arms protecting his head as the sound and heat and glass rolled over them. He was up quickly as the explosion passed, gun in hand and scanning for trouble. The shock of the moment was an ideal time for an assassin to strike.

Either this assassin didn't think like that or he backed off seeing Kyle ready, because nothing happened until the others climbed groaning to their feet. They were far enough away to have only suffered minor cuts and singeing it seemed. Jake had taken the worse of it, of course, trying to protect the others, but even he didn't seem to be more than annoyed at the state of his suit.

"Lou is going to make me pay for a replacement, isn't she?" he grumbled.

"Payback for not telling her what's going on," Kyle agreed, still keeping a watch out.

That was when Jake noticed his gun. "Uh, Kyle," he said hesitantly. "You're not going to like this, but you need to unload your gun."

"What?" Kyle demanded. Disarming himself made no sense, and he watched disbelievingly as Jake took out his own gun, ejected the cartridge and cleared the barrel.

"Gremlin," Tyler repeated. "Imagine the safety catch failing and the gun going off at the worse possible moment."

"Or jamming on you," Cooper added, eyeing Kyle's gun with obvious distaste.

Kyle noticed Tyler wince at that. Apparently so did Delko. At any rate he practically growled, "That's enough, Cooper."

Cooper looked annoyed enough to argue back, but Tyler held up a hand to forestall him. "It's alright, Eric," he said to Delko. "He didn't know. Besides, the point of practical experience is to learn from it, right?"

"Anyway," Jake said before either of the others could butt back in, "the point here is that anything that's complicated enough to go wrong probably will. Breaking technology is what gremlins do."

Jake looked completely serious when he said that. If this was part of some hideously expensive prank, Kyle couldn't see any of the little tells Jake still had to those who knew him well. Reluctantly, Kyle unloaded his gun and made it safe.

"Jake," Tyler said very quietly, "should you be here?"

"Huh?"

"If you are a six million dollar Summers..." Tyler trailed off, the way Jake paled being answer enough. Kyle imagine what malfunctioning nanites could do to Jake's body and paled himself.

"You're right," Jake said after a moment. "I could be more of a danger than a help." He looked horribly conflicted, and Kyle sympathised. "Get them out of here safely, OK?" Jake asked him.

"You're really serious about this," Kyle said. He didn't want to believe it, but the evidence — and the property damage — was stacking up against him.

Jake sighed. "Magic is real," he said. "Demons are real. If you want to know more, Tyler knows as much as I do. Now I need to get out of here by the express route." He walked grimly over to the nearest full-length window.

"We're two floors up," Delko cautioned him.

"Yeah, but it's clear below," Jake muttered. He took a couple of steps back, then charged forwards, shattering the glass.

Cooper and Delko shouted and ran to the broken window, ignoring Tyler's assurances that Jake would be fine. Kyle didn't bother talking. He simply grabbed both men and hauled them back from the edge. Just in time; a large dagger-like shard of glass fell from the top of the frame, missing Cooper by inches. A couple of seconds earlier and it could easily have killed him.

"Fuck," Cooper said fervently.

"What the hell is going on here?" Delko demanded wildly.

Tyler took him by the shoulders and looked him very seriously in the eye. "I know this goes against everything you've been taught," he said, "but there really is a gremlin loose in the building, trying to kill Cooper because it thinks he's me."

"A gremlin," Delko said weakly.

"I've seen a major demon," Tyler said. He shuddered. "It appeared out of thin air, and it shrugged off the best Summers and Foley could do to it. Which is a lot. Trust me, Eric, this stuff is very real."

"But..."

"We don't have time for this," Kyle interrupted. He understood the scientist's need to disprove magic, but they still had a psychopath with a trap fetish after them. He could wait until later to argue about whether or not it was actually a gremlin.

"The lifts are out," he continued. "What's our best way out of here?" He looked at the others expectantly.

The crunch of glass underfoot had him spinning round, useless gun in hand. "Your best way out, hot stuff," said the smoking hot brunette, "is to follow me."


	5. Chapter 5

She was hot, that was for sure. Dan was in love with Maria, but that didn't make him blind, and he knew a hot woman when he saw one.

"So which one of you is Foley?" she asked.

"He had to leave," Tyler said. "Him against a gremlin would have been really nasty." Dan didn't understand that; even if he accepted that gremlins were real, he didn't get why the NSA guy would rather jump out a window than face one.

Hot Woman looked at the broken window curiously. "A two story fall wasn't?" she asked.

Tyler shrugged. "Would it bother you?"

"Probably not," she admitted.

Okay, Dan thought to himself, Hot Woman is dangerous. Do not flirt with her. The axe she was carrying and the knives strapped to her arms were also a big clue that offending her might not end well.

"Who the hell are you?" Agent Kyle demanded, and honestly Dan was this close to calling the government types J and K and pretending he had never watched _Men In Black._ Which was a whole different and ironic level of dangerous, but Dan figured he was owed it for accidentally being put in life-threatening danger.

"Name's Faith," Hot Woman replied. "If you were with Foley then I'm your exterminator."

Tyler nodded and relaxed. Dan mentally reclassified this Faith as _very_ dangerous. He wasn't at all sure he believed in demons — aliens preying on the superstitious sounded like a more plausible explanation, and his alien powers would look like magic to most people — but if he'd understood right this woman was some kind of super-cop used to this sort of thing. He'd better be careful around her.

"So that's me," Faith said when nobody else said anything. "I recognise Tyler here from his background check. Who are the rest of you?"

They introduced themselves around, Agent K pulling out his badge which for some reason Faith sniffed before giving back. Delko, of course, didn't let a little thing like standing in a bomb site stop him from throwing his weight around. "Why did you run a background check on Tyler?" he challenged.

Faith shrugged. "He did some database work for us, and we always check Sunnydalers. Even the ones B vouches for."

Dan had about a million questions he wanted to ask, but there was the whole 'gremlin trying to kill him by mistake' thing to worry about. "Can we get out of here?" he asked.

"That's the plan, Dan," Faith said, grinning widely. "I'll take the lead with Secret Agent Man here." She nodded at Kyle. "The rest of you steer us towards the service stairs and keep your eyes open. Gremlins love traps, the more ludicrous the better."

Dan grimaced. Stuck in his very own comic-book death-trap, and he didn't dare use his powers. This was over the top even for Max's life, why was it happening to him?

"Sunnydale?" Delko asked Tyler as they moved off.

"My home town," Tyler said with a look of distaste on his face. "Apparently it was holiday central for the supernatural, which explained my class's mortality rate."

"Was that the place in California that fell into a sink-hole?" Dan asked. He remembered the news reports about the devastation and the brand new crater lake. There had been a lot of talk about whether it was the start of major earthquake activity in the area, but nothing more had happened.

"That's the one," Tyler confirmed.

"What do you mean, mortality rates?" Delko asked suspiciously. "I don't remember anything out of the ordinary in small-town California."

"I looked it up recently," Tyler said. "The per-capita death rate was actually higher than Miami, and that's not counting the unexplained disappearances. It should have been raising red flags at state and federal levels. I don't know why nothing happened about it."

"Magic," Faith said shortly. She kept her attention ahead as they reached the opaque walls of the interview rooms. "The few people who could see through it had their own agendas."

"But that's impossible," Delko protested. "Even if I believed in magic, you're talking about figures that are out there for anyone to look at."

"Do people look?" Dan asked. "You CSIs are always saying how much most people miss, why should this be any different?" In his experience, people didn't see what they didn't want to see, like Hank Whitmore not being a fit person to bring up a dog never mind a child.

Suddenly Faith raised her hand and halted. "It's near," she said quietly. Slowly and carefully she began to stalk forwards.

"Freeze," Delko hissed. Faith froze as he dropped to the floor and pulled out a pen torch. In the low-angled light, the shadow cast by the slightly raised floor tile was obvious.

"Good catch, Sherlock," Faith said approvingly. "Everybody back up."

They moved back a few yards to a storage closet that Faith promptly broke into. Ignoring Delko's protests, she pulled out a heavy vacuum cleaner and tossed it down the corridor.

The noise was deafening. Dan found himself curled up as small as he could get, hands over his ears, as an enormous volley of gunfire tore apart ten feet of corridor in front of him. He wasn't the only one.

"Stay put," Faith shouted. She jumped through the ruined side wall, clearly intent on mayhem. Dan stayed put and tried to stop shaking.

"That was a lot of guns," Tyler said unsteadily.

Dan didn't say anything. This was beyond a joke, and once he had his nerves under control he started to get angry. He had been blown up, nearly stabbed and now shot at, and he was sick of it. Gremlin or not, the moment he saw the bastard responsible for this it was going to pay.

After a few moments of silence, enough for Dan to get good and pissed off at life, Faith stormed back out to them. "It got away," she growled. "Come on, kiddies. I don't want to give it time to set up anything that elaborate again."

There was no talk as they moved this time. Everyone was concentrating too hard on their path, looking for any hint of a trap. It felt like being in a war movie, especially when Agent K dropped back to cover their rear. By the time they reached the emergency stairwell, Dan was spoiling for a fight.

Faith waved them back and approached the stairwell door carefully. Dan kept his eyes open; this was an ideal spot for an ambush. Was it paranoid to wonder if the gremlin expected them to wait back here?

In one smooth motion, Faith pushed the door open, threw down a knife to keep it that way and dived aside. A crossbow bolt whistled over her head, coming entirely too close to Dan for comfort. It might have hit Tyler if K hadn't pushed him out of the way.

"Whoa, thanks," Tyler said unsteadily.

K gave him a brief shrug. "Clear?" he asked Faith.

Faith looked cautiously around the door frame, pulled out another knife and levered a blade from over the doorway. "Five by five," she said. "Let's move, people."

They moved, though not quickly. The stairwell was only dimly lit by emergency lighting, and Dan worried about trip-wires the whole way down. Nothing happened though, and they all assembled at the foot of the stairs. Faith looked at the door consideringly. Dan didn't even try to guess how it was going to be trapped; he'd been wrong every time so far, about the only thing he was confident of was that it would be trapped somehow.

At Faith's silent orders they moved to the sides and made themselves as small as they could. She approached the door cautiously, but before she could touch it a loud clattering noise started form the stairwell above them. Dan looked up to see a large ball of, well, scrap iron now, slowly picking up speed as it bounced down the stairs. God only knew what it had been originally, but now it was sharp, spiky and big enough to crush anyone it didn't stab to death. They had to get out of the stairwell now!

Things happened very quickly. Faith reached for the door handle, only to be hit by a big enough electric shock to make her scream and spasm. Agent K shoulder-charged her, knocking her out of contact with the door and pushing it open. Through the gap, Dan could see something big moving towards them fast.

It wasn't Dan Cooper that reacted. That was all Michael Guerin.


	6. Chapter 6

Tyler's heart finally stopped trying to beat its way out of his ribcage. He hadn't had time to think when he, Eric and Dan had dragged the others out of the stairwell ahead of what looked like half a ton of spiky death, and it was only now dawning on him that the wreckage on the other side of the door had once been heavy and spiky too. They would have been smashed between them, except Dan had done something and the deadfall ahead of them had exploded. Literally. A ball of white light had shot out of his hands and torn the deadly blockage apart.

Tyler squatted next to what had once been part of a desk and took a breath. "So, magic," he said to Dan. "I'm beginning to feel left out."

Dan looked around wildly. "I, uh, I'm not..." he said uncertainly. He looked completely freaked out, like he'd barely heard Tyler's attempt to lighten the mood.

"Hey," Tyler said gently, "is that the first time that happened to you?" It was the obvious reason for the freak out. Tyler would have freaked out, at least.

"Uh, yeah?"

Dan didn't sound all that convincing to Tyler, so he wasn't that surprised when Eric's head shot up. "You knew you could do that?" Eric demanded.

"Um, maybe. It's not the first time stuff has exploded when I've been in danger."

There was something Dan wasn't saying, Tyler realised. Eric would notice how careful that reply had been, and he was bound to push. Tyler on the other hand was inclined to give the guy a break. He had just saved all their lives, after all.

"Well, good for us that you exploded this," he said sincerely, indicating the junk lying around them.

"Yeah," Faith said wearily, "you can come and blow shit up for me any time." She stood stiffly, waving off Kyle when he tried to help her. "Let's get out of here," she said.

"You shouldn't be moving yet," Kyle said disapprovingly.

Faith shrugged. "I'm a Slayer," she said, "I heal crazy fast."

"Faith, you were just electrocuted. I'm surprised you're not dead."

"Yeah, well," she said simply. Then she turned, drew a knife and threw it in one smooth motion. Tyler could only tell she was slow because he'd seen Summers in action. There was a screech and a lot of clattering from the gloom in that direction, and Faith swore. "Missed it," she fumed.

"I'm guessing the emergency exit is out," Tyler said.

Kyle looked at the door put there so people evacuating down the stairs could get out of the building quickly. "It looks like it's welded shut," he said. "Plus..." He tossed a piece of scrap metal at the door, which sparked impressively. "Yeah, not a good idea to touch that."

"So we explode it," Eric said. He looked challengingly at Dan, who paled.

"I guess I can try," he said. He sounded nervous, but Tyler still wasn't convinced it was because he didn't think he could do it. Dan stood and planted himself squarely facing the door. Tyler joined him and clapped a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"It'll be OK," he said quietly. Whatever 'it' was.

Dan gave Tyler a quick look, half defiant and half scared, before turning back to the door. He took a deep breath, raised his right hand and started muttering something in Latin. Almost immediately a bright white light appeared in the palm of his hand, standing out starkly in the gloom. It looked just like the ball of light that had destroyed the deadfall. Tyler was so fascinated by it he paid no heed to the quiet click from further into the building.

Faith barrelled into the pair of them, knocking them to the ground as there was a loud twang and something flew overhead. Tyler looked up dazedly to see that a wire had wrapped around one of the support pillars with enough force to mark the concrete. The spiked weights on the ends now embedded in the pillar didn't look any too friendly either. If that had actually hit him at neck level...

"Move, people," Kyle shouted. He was looking up to where Dan's wild magical shot had wrecked the ceiling tiles. Tyler could see the pipes for the sprinkler system exposed, and as he watched they started to drip. He scrambled to his feet quickly, Faith and Dan right with him, none of them wanting to get soaking wet right next to high voltage. Electrocution did not sound like fun.

As they hurried away, the clicking sound came from in front of them. Tyler and Dan both dived for the floor, but Faith used a chair to leap high in the air. There was another screech and a scuffling from up ahead, then Faith landed with a crash. The others approached cautiously to see her extracting herself from a wrecked desk and swearing fluently. Close by was what Tyler could only think of as a pair of crossbows that had been in a car crash, another weighted wire loaded on them.

"Cross-bolas," Dan said bemusedly. Tyler groaned at the pun, and Faith glared at them both as she stalked towards the device.

"Stay back," Kyle said sharply. "If I was that thing and couldn't guarantee to get a second shot off, I'd booby-trap that bow to hell and back."

He picked up a mug from a nearby desk and, once Faith had backed off, lobbed it at the weapon. The metal arms promptly snapped off, flying back with enough force to have killed or maimed anyone holding it.

"That little fucker is making all the running," Faith growled.

"It hasn't done us any permanent damage," Tyler said consolingly. Which was a weird thing to be consoled by, but that was the kind of day it was.

"And you have hurt it," Eric said. He pulled latex glove out of his pocket and picked a knife up off the floor. The knife Faith had thrown earlier, if her reaction was anything to go by. "There's blood on the edge," Eric told her. "You must have just clipped it."

Faith brightened. "At least we've done something to it," she said turning to Dan. "And it's probably got no idea what you are either."

"Uh, what?" Dan said warily.

"I may not know much about magic, but even I know no one ever exploded anything by chanting Lorem Ipsum."

It took an embarrassingly long time for Tyler to realise that what Dan had been muttering had indeed been the pseudo-Latin doggerel used to check layouts. He put his head in his hands and moaned. "Man, that is just so wrong. You couldn't have picked something classier?"

Eric didn't give Dan a chance to reply. "So if that wasn't magic, what was it?" he demanded. He had his 'I have had enough of this shit' face on, Tyler realised with a sinking heart. "Ty, are you going to go out on a limb here too?"

"I don't think we've got the time to—"

"Make time."

"Make time later," Kyle said firmly. "It's not just about us keeping moving. The less that thing knows about what Mr Cooper can do, the better."

Eric scowled, though he didn't resist as Kyle started herding them on. "What about us knowing what Cooper can do?" he grumbled.

"You'll just have to trust him," Kyle told him. He smiled slightly at Dan, who looked faintly stunned. "My partner still regularly surprises me with new tricks. You learn to roll with it."

Eric muttered something discontentedly that Tyler didn't catch. It was pretty clear from his body language that he wasn't going to start trusting Dan any time soon. Tyler couldn't help but wonder why; Eric wasn't normally one to pre-judge people. He could hold grudges though, and he had been cool towards Dan from the moment he'd stepped into the lab.

"What is your beef with him?" he asked as they headed cautiously towards the front of the building.

Surprisingly it was Dan who answered. "It's probably my fault," he sighed. "Eric is the spitting image of my best friend's ex-husband. I never liked the jerk, and I've not exactly been friendly because of him."

Eric gave him a look of mingled surprise and scepticism that said there was more to it than that. "Eric?" Tyler asked.

"Why did you quit?" Eric challenged. He sounded belligerent, but Tyler knew him better than that. Especially when he promptly soft-pedalled. "I mean, I know it was hard losing Speed, and I guess I thought being around here must have been too much, but..."

But he'd turned up today as cheerful as ever, and if scuttlebutt didn't know he was living with a boyfriend, someone was falling down on the job. "I got caught up with Summers and Foley taking on a demon. There were complications I seriously didn't want to try to explain," like Speed suddenly being alive again, "and if I stayed here I would've had to explain them sooner or later. Please don't ask, I still don't want to explain."

Eric didn't exactly looked happy at that — Tyler guessed no CSI worth their badge was going to be happy with unanswered questions — but he did at least tone down his scowl. Dan, by contrast, looked royally pissed.

"You mean you've been taking it out on me because you couldn't handle Tyler quitting?" he said. "What a load of crap."

"Yeah, and you helped your case so much," Eric fired back. "And you were keeping secrets from us."

"Because telling everyone I'm — that I've got these powers works so well."

"Am I going to have to separate you two?" Faith said amusedly. Tyler had to stifle a laugh at the identical rebellious looks Eric and Dan gave her. "Time to be quiet, kiddies. We're coming up on the lobby, and crossing that big an open space is not going to be fun."

"At least we should be able to see properly," Kyle said. "The whole frontage is glass."

As they peered cautiously into the lobby, Tyler reflected that Kyle had pretty much jinxed them with that comment. The entire wall of glass was covered in what looked like white paint. It wasn't thick enough to completely block the light, but it turned what should have been a bright and airy space into something gloomy and forbidding.

"What did it do, paint bomb the place?" Eric asked incredulously.

"I thought the _Mythbusters_ busted that," Dan said. He looked well and truly spooked by the shadows. Tyler didn't blame him; he felt the same.

"It's in here," Faith said before Eric could start arguing again. "I can feel it." She scanned the room carefully, as did everyone else. There were little piles of overturned furniture dotted around the normally empty area, all decent places for something as short and flexible as their gremlin to hide. Or fill with booby-traps. Tyler looked longingly at the entrance doors, so temptingly near, and shuddered at the thought of what was probably in the way.

Faith looked at Dan and pointed at a janitorial cupboard. "Clear me a path," she ordered. Dan didn't bother pretending this time, he just stretched out a glowing hand and the nearest pile of junk was pushed aside.

Unfortunately the gremlin seemed to have anticipated something like that. Some spring-loaded mechanism went off and a small shower of debris headed in their direction. Kyle kicked up a chair and stopped them being hit by anything, but what looked like a Coke can wrapped in duct tape rolled in amongst them and started releasing dirty white smoke.

"Get back," Tyler shouted. He was feeling light-headed from just a few seconds exposure, he didn't want to risk any more. It was probably highly toxic.

"It's OK," Dan said. "I think I can..." He thrust his glowing hands into the cloud, which started thinning immediately. Whatever he was doing was working.

There was movement from up ahead. The gremlin, Tyler realised woefully slowly. Kyle was more on the ball. He moved to cover Dan with his chair, which abruptly sprouted a wicked-looking barbed bolt. Nasty, Tyler thought woozily, as Faith leapt towards the gremlin.

Tyler saw the thing clearly as it cranked it's home-made crossbow. It really did look ridiculously like a movie gremlin except hairier and with over-long arms, and Tyler wondered for a moment if Joe Dante had had an experience with the supernatural. The creature took one look at Faith charging it down, then deliberately stepped onto a pile of rubbish. Again some kind of spring released, catapulting the gremlin into the air and forcing Faith to dive aside from another load of shrapnel. Tyler watched in horror as it sighted down at Dan while Kyle struggled to raise the chair enough to cover him. It was going to get a shot...

Something smashed through the glass and struck the gremlin at the top of its flight. It was one of the concrete planters from out front of the building. Either Faith had brought reinforcements or Jake had found a way to help them after all.

The gremlin screeched and tried to crank its crossbow again, but Faith didn't give it a chance. Before it could get its feet under it she had thrown a knife into the makeshift mechanism, jamming it solidly. She was moving slowly for her, partially affected by the gas Tyler guessed, and if the gremlin had been moving at full speed it would have got away again. After getting hit by half a ton of concrete, it was a different story. It managed to parry Faith's first axe blow with the now useless crossbow, but her second blow severed one of those repulsive arms and her third split its head.

"That," Tyler said happily to an astounded-looking Eric, "is a Slayer operating at fifty percent." Then the room wobbled alarmingly around him.


	7. Chapter 7

Tim Speedle had broken a few traffic regulations getting to the crime lab. Normally he was careful to ride legally these days, mostly because he didn't want to risk getting pulled over by anyone who might recognise him from before he died. Today was different; today Tyler was in danger, and he wasn't answering his phone. For the first time in a while, Tim regretted living so far outside Miami.

He arrived to find the building evacuated, crowds of his former co-workers milling around at a safe distance, and Jake Foley in a beat-up suit standing there just looking up at the building. Leaving his helmet on to hide his face, Tim strode over. Foley evidently saw him and waved away the cops that moved to intercept him.

"Where's Tyler?" Tim demanded.

"Still in there," Jake said grimly.

"And you're still out here because...?"

Jake sighed. "All of my enhancements are technological. Your boyfriend figured that out, and then figured out that made me more of a liability than a help against a gremlin. Which reminds me." He put a hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a mess of wiring and a battery pack. "Here, take this. If I fall over, get it as near as you can and connect up the battery."

Tim looked at the wire wound tightly around an iron core and duct-taped into immobility. "EMP generator?" he guessed.

Jake nodded. "The best I could do without supplies, but it should be enough to reset things if I'm in trouble."

"Huh." Tim thought about it for a moment, then pocketed the device. He made sure the battery went into a different pocket to the rest of the makeshift reset button. No sense in making things easy for the gremlin after all.

"Keep an eye out for more suits," Jake advised off-handedly. "It turns out the FBI— Lt Caine, what can I do for you?" he finished loudly. Tim turned to see Horatio stalking over to them and winced. Horatio wasn't an easy man to read, but Tim knew him well enough to recognise the fury in his posture.

"Mr Foley," H said icily. "Or should I say Agent Foley?"

"I don't mind," Jake said easily. "Call me Jake if you prefer." Tim managed not to wince again; being friendly was not going to win Jake any points from Horatio in this mood.

"I understand I have you to thank for evacuating the building," H continued, and yes, he was livid. The sarcasm on the word 'thank' alone was enough to make Tim want to run for the hills.

"Technically it was my partner's decision," Jake said seriously, "but he was right. It was much too dangerous to leave your people inside."

Tim expected Horatio to start interrogating Jake about the threat to his people, but instead H turned him. "Your partner," he said, eyeing Tim curiously.

"Oh no," Jake said quickly, "Agent Duarte is still in the building. This is more of an annoying friend who won't stay away, and whose boyfriend will kill me if he gets hurt again."

Tim glared at Jake, for all the good it did with his motorcycle helmet still on. He would have given Jake an earful for that comment, but there was too big a chance Horatio would recognise his voice.

Horatio himself raised an eyebrow. "And you are?" he asked Tim.

"Classified," Jake said. "I don't have time to brief you on the reasons, but we would prefer certain people to think he's dead." Smoothly done, Tim thought. Jake hadn't actually lied, and Horatio would understand about undercover work even if he didn't like it.

"Very well," Horatio said in a way that told Tim he had no intention of liking anything Jake said. "Now, what is going on in my crime lab?"

Jake sighed. "There's an assassin in there on a mission to discredit and kill one of your people."

"Dan Cooper," Horatio said sharply. "Why?"

"It should have been Tyler Jensen," Jake explained, "because he helped me last time I was in town. The idiots who hired the gremlin were working off incomplete information and just identified him by job."

Horatio nodded, apparently satisfied by the explanation. "The Gremlin?" he queried.

Jake grinned. "He loves booby traps and is a genius at messing up machines and electronics. What else were we going to call him?" Another lie without lying, Tim noted.

"Mr Cooper is still inside," Horatio pointed out.

"Yeah," Jake agreed unhappily, "along with my partner, Tyler and CSI Delko. I really hope Faith's caught up with them." He looked distractedly at where someone — presumably the gremlin — had painted over the glass walls of the entrance lobby.

"Another annoying friend?" Horatio asked drily. Tim glared at him, for the good it did.

Jake shook his head. "She's the heavy hitter. With her, they've got a chance of taking the gremlin down." He stared intently at the building and smiled grimly. "The good news is they have met up with Faith and they've reached the lobby."

"And the bad news?" Horatio asked.

"So has the gremlin."

Tim looked longingly at his former workplace, wishing there was something useful he could do. Jake too seemed to be casting around for inspiration, and after a moment he stepped over to one of the decorative planters. "The doors are welded shut, I could make them an exit," he said dubiously.

"That is solid concrete, Mr Foley," Horatio observed. "You'll need help to use it as a battering ram."

"Too dangerous," Jake said grimly. Whatever else he going to say was lost when muffled crashing noises from the building grabbed their attention.

Jake's eyes widened. "Wow," he said, then quickly swept up the planter and hurled it like some outsized baseball. It shattered the glass frontage and struck something — someone? — on the inside. Tim remembered something about Jake having enhanced senses. He must have found some way of targeting the gremlin despite not being able to see it.

"Hah!" Jake crowed. "Weren't expecting that, were yeark—" His words choked off and he convulsed as a shriek rose from the building. Tim didn't hesitate, but by the time he had the short-range EMP generator out of his pockets Jake was lying on the ground twitching. Quickly, Tim held the coil to Jake's chest, trying to ignore the lesions forming on his skin, and carefully pressed the exposed wires to the battery contacts. There was an impressive spark, and Jake convulsed once more before lying back.

"Ow," he said feebly.

"Are you OK?" Tim asked urgently. He'd seen Jake heal a sword cut in moments, but right now he didn't seem to be getting any better.

"Th-thirty seconds," Jake said with obvious effort. "Reboot. How's the fight?"

Tim looked up in time to see a woman — Faith, from all the leather — put an axe through the gremlin's head. "It's over," he said, and made to stand.

Jake feebly caught his wrist before he was upright. "Booby traps," he reminded Tim.

Tim swore, but stayed where he was.

"What in the name of all that's holy just happened?" Horatio bit out angrily.

"Killed the gremlin," Jake said before Tim could figure out a way to say anything that didn't give his identity away. "They just— oh, that's better." He relaxed for a moment, and the lesions started visibly fading. "Now they just need to make the last ten yards without setting off anything lethal." He sat up and stuck out a hand for Tim to haul him upright.

"Your skin?" Horatio asked. His eyebrows were clearly visible over his sunglasses.

"Classified," Foley said firmly. "As is pretty much everything else you've seen me do."

Horatio started to argue the point, but Tim was distracted by the sight of Tyler staggering out of the building supported by a young man he didn't know. A woozy-looking Faith was practically dragging Eric and a Hispanic man in a suit, probably Jake's partner, which meant the guy with Tyler must be Dan Cooper. What the hell had happened to them?

Then Tyler pretty much fell on Cooper, and Tim unfroze. He yelled for the paramedics and hurried over to his boyfriend. Tyler gave him a blinding smile and flung an arm vaguely around his shoulders. "Tim!" he said much too loudly. "I missed you! I think I'm high."

"Yeah," Tim grunted. Tyler's pupils were blown and his coordination was gone; he was definitely high on something. "What happened, Ty?"

"Traps," Tyler said unhelpfully. "Lots and lots of traps. Lots and lots and lots of traps."

"Some kind of white gas," Cooper put in before Tyler could expand further on the number of traps. He looked completely normal, if understandably stressed. "We didn't get a full dose, but that's about as much as I know."

"It didn't affect you?" Jake asked, appearing at Tim's shoulder.

Cooper eyed him cautiously. "Just lucky I guess."

Jake nodded as if this was nothing unexpected. "I'll go find out what it is," he said and stepped inside.

"Eric, Tyler," Horatio said as Tim checked Tyler over for any signs of injuries. "Can you tell me what happened in there?"

"It was weird, H," Eric said uncertainly.

"Really weird," Agent Duarte agreed. "Nobody told me about gremlins."

"Faith slayed it," Tyler put in. "We helped," he added proudly.

Eric brightened. "Cooper blew shit up," he said. "He isn't magic."

Tim had a feeling that wasn't a non-sequitur. The feeling grew when Tyler tapped the side of his nose and said "I'm going out on a limb here."

"Yeah, yeah, you're a funny guy," Faith said tiredly. "God, I feel like crap."

"I'm not surprised," Jake said as he came back out to them. He rattled off an awkward description of a molecule that Tim recognised from both his medical and CSI training. "There's not much left to analyse, but I'm pretty confident that's it."

"So basically it aerosolised cocaine somehow," Tim summarised. It would have been horrifically easy to overdose on that, and at best it would have left them easy meat for a trap or a more conventional attack. He turned to the paramedics now tending the group. "Treat it like a potential OD," he told them. "Faith's already coming down so they probably aren't in any danger, but let's not take chances."

"Wait, I got high?" Faith asked.

"With your metabolism, it probably came and went while you were fighting," Jake told her.

"Typical. I don't get to enjoy the high, but I still have to put up with the crash."

"Wait, I'm high?" Eric asked.

"Is there an echo in here?" Cooper muttered.

"Yes, you're high," Jake said. "Just sit back and enjoy it."

"No, you don't get it," Eric said with about as much agitation as Tim reckoned he could work up in his current state. "We have drug tests. I can't be high."

"There are, uh, reasons?" Agent Duarte offered vaguely.

"Extenuating circumstances," Jake filled in, "which your boss is aware of." He glanced at Horatio for support.

"I am," Horatio said, wearing a dangerously official smile. "I would however like a few more details."

"Oh, OK." Eric scratched his head and let the medics actually take care of him at last. "It was a gremlin," he said.

" _A_ gremlin?" Horatio asked. He raised an eyebrow at Jake.

"That's what they said," Eric said defensively.

Tyler nodded vigorously. "Definitely a gremlin," he said. "Unless it was a spider monkey. Do spider monkeys have big teeth?"

"Sometimes," Jake said unconvincingly.

Tim looked over to warn Jake that Horatio wasn't going to let this go. He changed his mind when he saw who was approaching. "Three suits," he said quietly. "With guns."


	8. Chapter 8

Tim kept a careful eye on the men in suits as they approached. They had a quiet arrogance about them that he didn't trust. That together with Jake's warning to watch for them made him more than usually cautious.

Jake sighed. "I was really hoping to be out of here before they showed up. Just follow my lead." He looked hopelessly at Agent Duarte, who was flirting clumsily with the paramedic checking him over, then pasted on a smile and turned to greet the men.

"Agents, good to see you," he said cheerily. "What brings the FBI out into the field?"

The lead agent didn't waste any time on Jake's pleasantries. "We're taking over here," he said, flashing his badge.

Horatio pursed his lips angrily, but Jake answered first. "Nice try, but this is a joint operation being lead by the NSA and we didn't invite you to play." He casually pulled out his own badge and let them have a good long look.

The agent shrugged. "Fine," he said, "you take the glory. We just want him." He pointed at Dan, who looked petrified. Tim planted himself firmly between him and the FBI agents as moral support, while Faith and Horatio moved to flank Jake.

"On what grounds do you propose to detain Mr Cooper?" Horatio demanded. Tim smiled behind his helmet; Horatio might not like the situation he was in, or Jake for trying to keep him in the dark, but he would defend his staff from all-comers.

"National security," the FBI man said.

Agent Duarte looked up from his flirting to laugh out loud. "Funny," he said gleefully. "See, we're the National Security Agency." Jake sighed.

"Also, his name isn't Cooper," the FBI man continued smoothly, as if Agent Duarte hadn't interrupted. Tim couldn't see, but he would bet that Horatio had raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Look," Dan said, and out of the corner of his eye Tim saw him raise his hands placatingly, "I'm not—" He broke off as the three FBI men quickly drew their guns and pointed them at him. Standing in the way, Tim didn't find this at all encouraging, but he held his ground.

"Put the guns down," Jake snapped, all humour gone. He and Faith were tensed for action now.

The agents either didn't notice or didn't care. "Stand aside, sir," the leader said to Tim.

"No," Tim replied. He kept it short so his nerves wouldn't show.

"No," he heard Tyler say. There was a commotion behind him, but Tim didn't dare take his eyes off the FBI men. "No, no, no. No pointing guns at Tim."

"Ty," Tim said as soothingly as he could, but Tyler was having none of it.

"You died, Tim," he said, and it hurt to hear the pain in his voice. "You're not allowed to die again."

"I'm not going to die, Ty," Tim said evenly, "but I'm not going to stand aside for them."

"You don't know what he's capable of," the FBI leader said grimly.

"We're entirely aware of what he's capable of," Jake disagreed. "Today's emergency was exactly why we placed Agent Guerin here."

That got the leader's attention. His eyes flicked over to Jake before returning to Dan. Guerin. Whatever his name was. "Show me your badge," he challenged.

"Uh, undercover," Dan pointed out. He still sounded nervous, not that Tim blamed him with the guns pointed at them both.

"If you don't believe me, ask our boss," Jake said. "She's been wanting to talk to the head of Special Division for a while."

Faith spoke up. "So are you going to put those guns away, or am I going to make you?" She and Jake stared the FBI agents down for a few more moments until the leader finally gave in and reholstered his weapon.

"This isn't over," he said to Dan.

"Please try something," Jake told him, not relaxing one bit. "Half the agency wants to teach you people a lesson in ethics." The agent curled his lip but said no more. He pulled his phone out as he stalked off, his minions trailing along behind him.

Once they were out of earshot, Horatio turned and demanded angrily, "You planted an agent in my lab?"

Jake held up a hand. "Just a minute. I bluejacked their phones, and I really need to hear this conversation."

Horatio scowled and turned to Tim. "And you," he said. "Tyler's boyfriend Tim. Who died."

"Speed," Eric said promptly, then looked confused. "Sorry, was that a question?"

Tim held himself very still, trying hard not to give anything away. Jake was still engrossed in the FBI phone call, so they might... but no, Tyler was grinning fit to bust. "Love my Speed," he said.

Tim sighed and pulled off his helmet. If his cover was blown, he might as well be comfortable in the Miami heat. "Hi, H," he said smiling weakly. "Yeah, it's me."

Horatio looked stunned, but recovered quickly. "I saw Tim Speedle die in front of me," he said harshly. "I watched his autopsy."

Tim was glad he hadn't actually experienced that. Looking at the photos of his body cut open on the mortuary slab had been weird enough. "I died," he said. "For real. Then... it's complicated."

"All the best people have died and come back," Faith said unhelpfully. "I feel all left out, only being in a coma for a year."

"That's impossible," Horatio said, but Tim could hear the doubt creeping into his voice.

"Apparently not," he said. "Nobody really understands what happened, but it did happen. I'm alive again." He smiled a little. "Surprised the hell out of Buffy and Jake."

Jake turned at the sound of his name, eyes focusing back on the group. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry but I..." He trailed off and glared at Tim. "You couldn't just have stayed home like I told you?" he said.

"It seems there's quite a lot you haven't told me, Agent Foley," Horatio said bemusedly.

Jake gave a tired little laugh. "You don't know the half of it," he said, "and you aren't going to believe what I can tell you."

"Are you responsible for...?" Horatio waved vaguely at Tim. He looked like he didn't know what to believe any more.

"No, that's all his own fault," Jake said firmly. "Faith's colleague and I were getting our asses handed to us by this eight foot tall nightmare, then Tim just appears and kills it with its own sword. One explosion later, he's alive and it's dead."

"Wait, you're the one that offed Azrafel?" Faith asked. "Huh. Maybe I should have read that report before coming down here."

"That... makes no sense at all," Horatio said.

"Tell me about it," Jake agreed. "All anyone knows is magic happened. Literally."

"I see," said Horatio, in tones that suggested he didn't see at all. "Then we have the matter of Mr Cooper, or Agent Guerin apparently," he continued in a much less friendly manner.

"Uh," Cooper/Guerin began, but Jake held up a hand to stop him.

"I lied about that," Jake admitted. "It was the only way I could think of to make the FBI back off."

"Any why exactly were the FBI interested in Mr Cooper?" Horatio asked. Tim was curious about that too. Aside from being suspiciously not high, Dan didn't seem to be particularly offensive.

Jake looked speculatively at Dan, then shrugged and turned back to Horatio. "You're going to look anyway now, so I might as well save you the trouble. I got curious about who we were saving here, so I pulled up Dan Cooper's records. I saw a few things that looked a bit odd, so I poked until it all started falling apart and, well, say hello to Michael Guerin, late of Roswell, New Mexico."

"The alien crash town?" Faith asked, eyeing Cooper — Guerin — curiously. Jake nodded.

"And the FBI are interested because of his disappearance?" Horatio asked.

"Not so much," Jake told him. He turned to Guerin. "You want to explain about them?"

"You're the one who seems to know everything," Guerin challenged.

Jake shrugged. "I'm NSA, it's what we do," he said with a smirk. "So the Special Division is a sort-of secret part of the FBI tasked with investigating and eliminating extra-terrestrial threats."

"Aliens?" Tim asked. "Seriously?"

"Says the guy who came back from the dead."

"Let me guess," Faith interrupted. "These Men in Black wannabes think what they do is so important the rules don't apply to them?"

"Yeah," Guerin said bitterly. "There really was a spaceship crash in Roswell way back when. Special Division captured, tortured and killed the aliens."

"Best I can tell," Jake said, "they want to do the same to Michael and his friends. That phone call they just made, their boss just told them to wait until Kyle and I were gone and then abduct him by any means necessary." He paused and winced. "Can we take the alien abduction jokes as read?"

Faith smirked. "It's like you know me, Spy Guy."

Jake gave her a look, but returned to his explanation. "When I found Special Division's electronic fingerprints all over Dan Cooper's records and found out who they were, I figured I'd better create a cover story just in case. My boss isn't exactly pleased, but that's normal and she's backed my play. If Special Division go looking, they'll find evidence that Michael Guerin started working for the NSA shortly after he disappeared, and is currently on an undercover op."

"So my choices are to let them experiment on me or let you experiment on me," Guerin said angrily.

"Hey, no fair," Agent Duarte called over. "We don't experiment on Jake."

"Kyle, Diane has me in the lab all the time."

"Yeah, so I've heard." Agent Duarte waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Tim would swear Jake blushed.

"Anyway," Jake said a little too loudly, "it's your choice. Agent Guerin will have to put up with people poking and prodding and telling you you don't have the instincts for the job _because some people think that's funny._ " He paused to glare at Agent Duarte, who just looked smug. "But you'll be doing good, and you'll be as safe from the FBI as we can make you."

"And if I don't want that?" Guerin demanded.

Jake shrugged. "We can play shell games, give you a head start on them. We're pretty good at that."

"You don't have to decide right now," Horatio said unexpectedly. "I don't think Agent Foley's colleague will be in any condition to travel for several hours."

"You're not mad?" Michael asked, surprised.

"A little disappointed that you didn't confide in me," Horatio admitted, "but it's understandable in the circumstances. You do good work, and that's all I really care about."

"I knew you were hiding something," Eric said cheerily. Everyone ignored him.

"Frankly, I'm more concerned about the state of the lab," Horatio continued.

"Yeah," Faith sighed, "the little bastard left presents all over the place, and we're going to have to find and defang them. I'm tagging you, me and Boom Boy for that," she told Jake.

"Could you not call me that?" Michael grumbled.

"It's worse than that," Tim said. "Any evidence in the building could be compromised now. A good lawyer could argue it out of court. You're going to have to revisit a lot of crime scenes."

"And then there's the physical damage," Jake said ruefully. "At least one lab blew up, and I'm betting that wasn't all. I hope your insurance covers assault by a supernatural creature."

"It's a shame you can't make the idiots who summoned it pay for the repairs," Faith remarked.

Jake froze, then smiled nastily. "You know, some terrorism charges do let us seize assets. I'll get the lawyers on it, they love a challenge."

"We could use a hand sorting this out," Horatio said, looking hopefully at Tim.

Tim sighed. He wouldn't mind having his job back, but he couldn't see it working. "I can't come back, H," he said sadly. "Too many people saw Tim Speedle die. It's a risk even staying in the cabin now I've been seen here. Everyone's too smart to believe any cover story we could come up with."

"You could come work for us," Faith said. Tim blinked. Work for the IWC? As what? "We don't exactly have anyone who knows how to investigate," Faith continued as if reading his mind. "Mostly trouble comes looking for us. When we have to go find it..." She shrugged.

"Buffy seemed to handle it just fine when she was here," Tim countered.

"B isn't nearly as ditzy as she likes people to think," Faith agreed, "but Sherlock Holmes she ain't. I bet your boyfriend did all the heavy lifting."

That was true enough to make Tim shift uncomfortably. "Ty would have to come too," he said.

"Yeah, computer skills from this century would be good."

"Seriously?" Tim asked. "You have Willow and you still think you need computer techs?" He'd seen her hack information out of a secure system less than a minute after Ty had asked if it was possible.

"Red is serious shit, but she's also Head Witch," Faith explained. "The magical crap takes up most of her time. Besides, she's not often on the same continent as us, never mind the same time zone."

"I'll have to check with Ty," Tim temporised.

"It's a brilliant idea," Tyler shouted.

"When he comes down," Tim shouted back. Not that he had much doubt what Tyler's answer would be then. They had had a fantastic time hidden away in their cabin, but they were both beginning to miss everyday life. Feeling useful, if Tim was honest. Having genuine work to do with people who wouldn't care that he'd been dead for a month, that wasn't going to happen often.

"Right," Faith said decisively, "that's about as much bonding as I can stand. What say we go and blow up some booby traps?"

"Much as I would like to join you," Horatio said, probably truthfully since he had been in bomb disposal, "I have people to organise. Speed, I'm leaving you in charge of the injured here. I'll keep everyone away until our experts declare the building safe to enter. Try not to cause any more property damage."

"On it, H," Tim said as the other three started bickering about what equipment to take with them. He moved over to crouch where Tyler was sat with an IV in his arm and a cluster of medical monitors.

"Hey," he said softly. "I hear you've had a busy day."

Tyler nodded. "Demons and hi-tech and aliens, oh my," he said solemnly. "But it's OK. You're here."

And Tyler was here and whole, Tim thought. For him, that was all that mattered.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogues. Three of them, because I'm generous like that.

Deputy Director Louise Beckett, Lou to those of her subordinates who liked living dangerously, looked at her newest hire and grimaced.

It wasn't that Michael Guerin didn't have the makings of a fine agent. He had managed to live mostly undetected for over a year with the FBI actively searching for him, after all. His looks didn't stand out (at least not now his hair was tamed. Lou had seen his high school yearbook, and no. Just no), and like Jake Foley his unusual powers made up for his lack of training. He needed to ditch the anger and she wished she was more sure of his loyalty to the Agency, but she had seen less promising material become one of her greatest assets.

No, what really annoyed Lou about this whole situation was that she'd been railroaded into it.

Jake she could have overridden, and she had seriously considered doing so. Guerin's powers were amazing, but he was a loner when she needed team players. Add to that the sheer bloody-mindedness the FBI could put into inter-agency politics, something that as a woman of action Lou thoroughly hated, and it didn't look nearly so appealing.

Then, for the second time in her life, Lou Beckett had picked up the phone to discover the President was on the line.

"What can I do for you, sir?" she had asked cautiously.

"Deputy Director Beckett, I hope I'm not interrupting anything important," President Bartlett had said warmly. "I'm afraid I don't have long between engagements, and this conversation needs to stay completely off the record."

"I see, sir." Lou had made a mental note to scrub the logs that would have already been made about this phone call.

"A little bird tells me that you are in a position to recruit a very unusual agent."

"You know about Michael Guerin?" Lou had asked. She wanted to ask if the President knew about aliens, but she still couldn't bring herself to say anything so weird out loud.

"I was briefed yesterday by an external agency," the President had said drily. Evidently Lou's own carefully censored reports hadn't made it as far as him. "I cannot stress how important it is that you take him on."

"Sir?"

"I can't give you a good reason, I'm afraid. My sources were vague, but it seems likely he is one of the people who will be needed in the future."

"Needed for what?"

"If anybody knew the answer to that question," the President had sighed, "life would be a lot simpler. As it is, all we can do is hope that our interpretations of cryptic and incomplete information are correct."

"That sounds a lot like my job, sir," Lou had observed. She hadn't expected the bark of laughter the comment got.

"I suppose so," the President had said ruefully. "I may ask you for the loan of a data analyst at some point."

"May I ask why, sir?" Frankly, Lou was getting irritated by the amount of confidential information her own underlings were having to keep from her. She hadn't been keen to add to that.

There had been a short pause. "Yes, I think you may," President Bartlett said slowly. "Tell Agent Foley from me that he is allowed to brief you about Azrafel and any related matters. Then ask me again if you still need to."

"Thank you, sir," Lou had said, surprised. She hadn't actually expected to get read in, but she certainly wasn't going to object.

"Don't thank me until after the briefing. It will break your worldview again." Lou had managed not to snort out loud. What was Jake going to top aliens with, ghosts?

"And Deputy Director," the President had continued, his voice suddenly more serious, "keep this information to yourself. There are people in your chain of command who may be working to their own agendas."

That should have shocked her, but Lou had already seen plenty of flat-out suspicious interest from the directorate in Jake. It had dimmed somewhat as Jake's naivety had worn off and his stubborn morals had become clearer, but there were still people further up the food chain who seemed to be interested in what he could do for them, not the country. Shielding Guerin from them was going to be tricky.

There had been more, but not a lot. The President apparently hadn't been kidding about not having much time, and had left her with more questions than answers. At least she would finally get that briefing from Jake, but first she needed to deal with the young man standing in front of her failing dismally to look like he didn't care.

"I get to keep you," she said sternly, trying to ignore the headache that political orders always gave her. Guerin's visible relief was embarrassing.

"There is a condition, though. A group from NORAD want to interview you."

* * *

"Is that the last of them?"

Robin Wood paused at the top of the stairs and eavesdropped on the pair Faith had brought back from Miami. They came with glowing commendations from Buffy, but Robin didn't know them and he still found it hard to trust in people he hadn't investigated himself.

"Yeah," said a second voice. Robin had no idea whether it was Speedle or Jensen. "I think pretty much every Slayer here carried a box up to check out the gay guys."

"As long as they carried the boxes for us, I don't really mind," the first replied.

"Wow, you're getting positively mellow in your old age."

"I died, Ty. It puts things in perspective."

That would be Speedle then, Robin thought. Judging from the sounds that followed, now would probably be a good time to remind them that the privacy spells on their room didn't work with the door open. He made a point of treading heavily in the corridor as he approached so at least they were presentable by the time he knocked on the doorframe. "Welcome to Cleveland, gentlemen," he said.

"Principal Wood," Jensen said, smiling broadly. "Thank you so much for offering us a place here."

Robin smiled politely, letting the fiction that he'd had anything to do with the decision slide. "Please, call me Robin when we don't have to behave as teachers."

Speedle grimaced. "That's going to take some getting used to," he admitted. "I don't have any real experience teaching and I can't say as I'm looking forward to it."

"It's unfortunate but necessary," Robin agreed. "Officially we are a school, and we do have to educate the Slayers assigned here." He'd insisted on that; the Slayers and Watchers needed to interact with each other more if the IWC wasn't to repeat Quentin Travers' mistakes. Setting up their North American Headquarters as a school was one way to achieve that. Resistance to the idea had crumbled when he named it the Joyce Summers Academy for Girls.

"It could be worse," Jensen told his partner. "They could be making you teach Spanish."

"I don't speak Spanish," Speedle said crossly.

"Exactly."

"Watchers being what they are," Robin interrupted before the conversation could get further off track, "we are well provided for in languages and history. It's science and technology where we are lacking, so your arrival is very convenient. And then there's your investigative skills."

Jensen nodded. "I take it I'll be keeping your computers running in my spare time?"

"Actually I was hoping you might take on another extracurricular." Robin paused. He didn't really want to ask this without knowing the man better, but the girls had worked up a level of enthusiasm over this that he had failed to dampen. "You studied musical theatre, correct?"

"Mainly dance, but yes."

"Some of the Slayers recently had to deal with a haunting at the civic auditorium," Robin said. He did not sigh through sheer force of will. "They were rather taken by the show choir competition that was taking place at the time."

"You want me to run a Glee club?" Jensen asked, his eyes comically wide. Then something seemed to occur to him and he grinned, turning to Speedle.

"No," Speedle said pre-emptively. "I don't play piano well enough to help. Heck, I haven't played properly for years."

"It's not like I'm a great singer either," Jensen protested.

"No, Ty."

"Not even if I ask very nicely?" Jensen said, wiggling his eyebrows.

"I'll leave you to that," Robin said drily. He pulled the door closed as he left. No sense in letting the entire house know just how nicely Jensen was asking.

* * *

Dave Benton looked around his little glass-walled domain and resisted the urge to throw his arms wide and shout, "Hello, Miami!" He'd already done that in the lobby, after all.

The important thing was the he was gainfully employed. A regular job with regular hours, and blessedly little time for Wyatt Halliwell to forget that he wasn't supposed to be in this time and do something world-changing by accident. He needed to keep his head down until he figured out what had been done to him and how to reverse it.

Staying away from his family was an important part of that plan. Dave had only the vaguest recollections of what they had been up to when he was a toddler, but a lot of it had been important. That included making sure he didn't turn evil and decide to rule the world, which Dave was all in favour of not changing. That was why he was in Miami, the opposite side of the country from the Charmed Ones, and still using as little magic as possible because nowhere on Earth was far enough from Aunt Phoebe when she was trying.

So while computers weren't really his thing, here he was working as a computer tech, and his eyes are ears were just fine for audio-visual analysis. And the computers were twenty years more primitive than he was used to, enough to be less complicated but not so much that anyone would expect him to solder wires or replace valves or anything. Swapping cables around he could manage, no matter what Chris said, and if he used a tiny little bit of magic to work out what was supposed to plug in where, well who was to know?

He would still be doing his duty, too. Helping to catch criminals was good work, and he'd never heard of Miami having much in the way of demonic activity. All the big boys gravitated to the west coast to take on his family, so it shouldn't be too hard to deal with local problems quietly. All in all, Dave thought he couldn't have found a better place to lie low.

Grinning broadly, Dave launched himself into his seat, fired up his computer and waited to see what the day would throw at him.

Senior CSI Eric Delko poked his head through the door and scowled. "Just so we're clear, if you're hiding something, I will find out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. Avid _Roswell_ fans may have noticed that I've played around with the last season details, particularly where Michael and Jesse are concerned. Just assume it all happened sensibly and backed me up.
> 
> Now I just have to round up the plot bunnies this has bred.


End file.
